September 1966 



COMMERCIAL FISHERIES REVIEW 



73 



United Kingdom (Contd.): 



would eventually be extended to all major 

 ports. 



Assistance to Inshore Fishermen: Two 



new cooperatives, at Brixham and at Kiikeel, 

 Northern Ireland, received grants towards 

 formation expenses. A loan was approved 

 for the Kilkeel Association, and the Brixham 

 Association received a loan towards the cost 

 of a flake ice plant. The formation and equip- 

 ment of inshore cooperatives is a field where 

 the Authority would welcome a greater oppor- 

 tunity of giving financial assistance. 



The Committee for Scotland and Northern 

 Ireland continued their program of developing 

 shellfish catches, and are maintaining close 

 cooperation with the newly formed Highlands 

 and Islands Development Board of fishery 

 matters. 



Market Promotion : The hopes that the 

 Authority would be in a position to take ini- 

 tial steps towards carrying out a more ex- 

 tensive promotion campaign were not real- 

 ized due to budgeting problems. The annual 

 appropriation for market promotion remained 

 at t75,000 ($210,000), and as in the previous 

 year was devoted to laying a firm foundation 

 for a wider campaign when that becomes 

 feasible. The Fish Information Service con- 

 tinued to provide material to help house- 

 wives and caterers. The advisory service 

 on shop improvement and the display service 

 secured increasing use by fish retailers. It 

 is felt that the limited funds are spent to good 

 advantage. 



Research and Development : Expenditure 

 on research and development projects dur- 

 ing the year was t374,000 ($1,047,200). 



OBJECTIVES AND WORK OF THE IN- 

 DUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT UNIT: The 

 Unit's objectives are to increase economic 

 efficiency by reducing vessel operating costs, 

 increasing time spent on the fishing grounds, 

 and by improving rates of catch, while main- 

 taining or improving the quality of the land- 

 ings. 



Costs may be reduced by ensuring that 

 the technical specification of a vessel is no 

 more than adequate in relation to the per- 

 formance required and by determining opti- 

 mum choices of speed, sizes of hold and 

 processing plant, and other characteristics 



for a given fishery. The Unit therefore de- 

 votes much time to measuring powers, speeds, 

 and characteristics of vessels and m.achinery 

 in service to provide a reliable basis for de- 

 sign and for new equipment. Trials were 

 carried out during the year in vessels of dif- 

 ferent types on such problems as type of 

 trawl, hydraulic transmission for winches, 

 tension meters, and performance of propel- 

 lers. To obtain satisfactory results, the Unit 

 evolved some advanced techniques of meas- 

 urement. 



Progress was made in the development of 

 a stabilized narrow -beam vertical echo- 

 sounder; on equipment for telemetering in- 

 formation from a bottomtrawl to the ship; 

 and in conjunction with the Marine Labora- 

 tory at Aberdeen, on the assessment of a 

 high-performance television camera for ob- 

 serving trawls in action. Tests were carried 

 out on a new disc-and-pad design of trawl- 

 winch brake. 



A number of trials were connected with 

 handling and processing on board. Full- 

 scale trials of boxing fish at sea demonstrated 

 that there were resulting advantages in im- 

 proved quality, reduced weight loss and land- 

 ing costs, and improved fillet yields. For 

 some time these advantages failed to secure 

 any significant premium in the price paid-- 

 a necessity to compensate for higher costs. 

 Trials on a method of superchilling the early 

 part of the catch, in boxes, confirmed that 

 extensions of voyages of at least three or 

 four days would be possible without loss of 

 quality. Work on these developments is con- 

 tinuing. 



Another successful experiment was the 

 transfer at sea of fish in boxes from one 

 trawler to another; the two vessels used in 

 the test were made fast, side by side, in a 

 Force 5 wind through the use of special in- 

 flatable rubber fenders. Paper studies were 

 made to throw light on the economic advan- 

 tage of fleeting or mothership operations. 



NEW FISHING GROUNDS: The potential- 

 ities of the fishing grounds in the South At- 

 lantic were explored to determine whether 

 investment in this fishery would be worth- 

 while. The survey ship Hecla carried out an 

 echo-survey off South-West Africa, and 

 British observers made observations and 

 experiments during voyages of commercial 

 trawlers of other nations. Sufficient infor- 



